I don't see how you can know you're close to discovering another Earth. Wouldn't that kind of imply you know roughly where it is? Or are they expanding the definition of "another Earth" so anything they find somewhat near the Goldilocks zone with a surface gravity between .2 and 5 G qualifies?

Or is this just a bullshiat sciency story written by a junior reporter who knows nothing about science aimed at readers who know nothing about science so we can all feel optimistic about a Star Trek utopia being just a few weeks away.

Once we find it, we should organize ourselves into colonization groups.

Into the A ship will go all the leaders, scientists and other high achievers. The C ship will contain all the people who make things and do things, and the B ark will go everyone else, such as hairdressers and telephone sanitizers.

Estimated...."We already know that our galaxy has at least 100 billion planets, and we didn't know that five years ago,"

100,000,000,000 x Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo which aperture ( imaging an area about the size of a grain of rice held at arm's length. ) of the sky is approximately a grain of rice held at arms length ( http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/27/image/a/ ) shows 10,000 galaxies. (I like grains of rice held at arms length. :-)

Imagine if we could cover the complete 360 degree scan of a circle of the sky around earth.......

The wikipedias mentions that there's been a moderate degree of apparently non-random EM radiation coming from Kepler-186f. Not so much as to fall outside the bounds of statistical pragmatism for random data, which seems, by far, like the bigger piece of news.

I mean that doesn't prove anything, but a civilization at least 500 years older than ours(measured in time since radio tech) would be a stupefying discovery.

Estimated...."We already know that our galaxy has at least 100 billion planets, and we didn't know that five years ago,"

100,000,000,000 x Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo which aperture ( imaging an area about the size of a grain of rice held at arm's length. ) of the sky is approximately a grain of rice held at arms length ( http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/27/image/a/ ) shows 10,000 galaxies. (I like grains of rice held at arms length. :-)

Imagine if we could cover the complete 360 degree scan of a circle of the sky around earth.......

Mind. Blown...... how many zeros?

/Googolplexian

I absolutely LOVE that picture. It's on a rotation in my desktop background.

So, what do you do at NASA? Besides holding grains of rice at arm's length?

Estimated...."We already know that our galaxy has at least 100 billion planets, and we didn't know that five years ago,"

100,000,000,000 x Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo which aperture ( imaging an area about the size of a grain of rice held at arm's length. ) of the sky is approximately a grain of rice held at arms length ( http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/27/image/a/ ) shows 10,000 galaxies. (I like grains of rice held at arms length. :-)

Imagine if we could cover the complete 360 degree scan of a circle of the sky around earth.......

Mind. Blown...... how many zeros?

/Googolplexian

I absolutely LOVE that picture. It's on a rotation in my desktop background.

So, what do you do at NASA? Besides holding grains of rice at arm's length?

Aquapope:I don't see how you can know you're close to discovering another Earth. Wouldn't that kind of imply you know roughly where it is? Or are they expanding the definition of "another Earth" so anything they find somewhat near the Goldilocks zone with a surface gravity between .2 and 5 G qualifies?

Or is this just a bullshiat sciency story written by a junior reporter who knows nothing about science aimed at readers who know nothing about science so we can all feel optimistic about a Star Trek utopia being just a few weeks away.

Well the real science is actually pretty good and has really gotten a boost from the Kepler system. I took a physics 109 class in college (astronomy + the math). I was amazed at how much information they can gather from just looking at an object. I don't know how many pieces of equipment they have pointed at this new planet but take a look at how many space-based telescopes we have up there at this point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_observatories

1. The SETI@Home computations show actual radio communication from 500 years ago, and yet this planets' denizens couldn't identify another potentially habitable world(ours) to directly message, like we could with them, which would make them comparatively incompetent.2. The SETI@Home computations were correct, they know about us, but they don't WANT to contact us(out of some sci-fi-esque fear of humans) and we still find out about them. Also incompetent.or3. The SETI@Home computations revealed statistically coincidental data, and there aren't intelligent aliens on Kepler-186f.

Aquapope:I don't see how you can know you're close to discovering another Earth. Wouldn't that kind of imply you know roughly where it is? Or are they expanding the definition of "another Earth" so anything they find somewhat near the Goldilocks zone with a surface gravity between .2 and 5 G qualifies?

Or is this just a bullshiat sciency story written by a junior reporter who knows nothing about science aimed at readers who know nothing about science so we can all feel optimistic about a Star Trek utopia being just a few weeks away.

I think the idea is that they are starting to fairly accurately predict and detect the planets in the correct zone. The first one was search, theorize, search some more, etc. Now, they are able to say "there should be one there, there or there" and come pretty close. Maybe they are getting good enough at this that they can write off a potential star's planets pretty easy, so less wasted time=closer to the goal.

I like how the article managed to equate finding a planet in the "Goldilocks Zone" with it definitely having life on it.

DubtodaIll:Well the real science is actually pretty good and has really gotten a boost from the Kepler system. I took a physics 109 class in college (astronomy + the math). I was amazed at how much information they can gather from just looking at an object. I don't know how many pieces of equipment they have pointed at this new planet but take a look at how many space-based telescopes we have up there at this point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_observatories

I pointed a 'piece of equipment' at the new planet and got a rise out of the indicator. I think that conclusively proves that the planet is occupied by Barbarellas...

Well, we know what type of star to look for (age, size, brightness, temperature, etc), so we know roughly where to look.

ChipNASA:Imagine if we could cover the complete 360 degree scan of a circle of the sky around earth.......

What stinks is that our brains simply aren't hardwired to be able to easily comprehend, or even imagine, such huge numbers (and conversely, extremely small numbers). That may be why people have such a hard time believing in things that are seemingly infinitesimally vast (or tiny), and it is far simpler to live in a bubble that consists of you (as a whole), and the bubble that immediately surrounds you. I can guarantee that if we ever do find hard evidence of alien life (even to the extent of them visiting us, and personally giving every single on of us a gift basket of fine chocolates and craft beer), there will be an overwhelming percentage of the human population that will either deny it happened, claim they are "works of the devil", and/or wage war on them as they are an affront to their god(s).

ikanreed:Mikey1969: I like how the article managed to equate finding a planet in the "Goldilocks Zone" with it definitely having life on it.

It's not like we have definite counter-examples in our own solar system or anything.

What? Earth? We have one planet with life on it, so that means automatically that all planets in the Goldilocks zone bear life? I once threw a bull on a dartboard without looking. That doesn't mean that I can automatically do it again.

Mikey1969:Aquapope: I don't see how you can know you're close to discovering another Earth. Wouldn't that kind of imply you know roughly where it is? Or are they expanding the definition of "another Earth" so anything they find somewhat near the Goldilocks zone with a surface gravity between .2 and 5 G qualifies?

Or is this just a bullshiat sciency story written by a junior reporter who knows nothing about science aimed at readers who know nothing about science so we can all feel optimistic about a Star Trek utopia being just a few weeks away.

I think the idea is that they are starting to fairly accurately predict and detect the planets in the correct zone. The first one was search, theorize, search some more, etc. Now, they are able to say "there should be one there, there or there" and come pretty close. Maybe they are getting good enough at this that they can write off a potential star's planets pretty easy, so less wasted time=closer to the goal.

I like how the article managed to equate finding a planet in the "Goldilocks Zone" with it definitely having life on it.

After the leap from "close to having the technonlogy to image Earth-sized planets" to "finding Earth's twin", that wasn't a very big leap.

Mikey1969:What? Earth? We have one planet with life on it, so that means automatically that all planets in the Goldilocks zone bear life? I once threw a bull on a dartboard without looking. That doesn't mean that I can automatically do it again.

You mistook supporting sarcasm for counterargument.

Venus and Mars are both Goldilocks candidates. And deader than subby's sex life.

NewWorldDan:Wake me up when we can get a probe to an exoplanet to really examine it. Get something headed towards Barnard's Star or Alpha Centauri and see what's there.

Alpha Centuri is 24 trillion miles from Earth. Deep Space 1 is traveling at 34,000 miles an hour. I don't know if there are other probes that are capable of traveling faster, but still. At that rate, it would take 84,000 years or so to arrive at Alpha Centauri

ikanreed:The wikipedias mentions that there's been a moderate degree of apparently non-random EM radiation coming from Kepler-186f. Not so much as to fall outside the bounds of statistical pragmatism for random data, which seems, by far, like the bigger piece of news.

I mean that doesn't prove anything, but a civilization at least 500 years older than ours(measured in time since radio tech) would be a stupefying discovery.

Most likely a radio signal saying bankers and politicians are farking up their world.

I look forward to two hundred years from now, when we start picking up radio signals from a planet with intelligent life. Get all excited. Start to decode it. Then realize it is our own signals reflected back at us.

Lt. Cheese Weasel:Lt. Cheese Weasel: NewWorldDan: Wake me up when we can get a probe to an exoplanet to really examine it. Get something headed towards Barnard's Star or Alpha Centauri and see what's there.

Yea, and let the folks know to check their email in baskets in about 2 centuries(?) when that probe goes the whole 1.3 parsecs to get there.

Answered my own question. 19, 000 years if done with gravitational assistance. 81,000 years with some kind of Ion propulsion. Better pack a lunch.

Well, we better start now. In 20,000 years we could all have been wiped out due to an asteroid.